P.S. – In The Lady of Sorrows chapter there was a flirt option for Senya. I really hope it was one of those “choices that mattered” that will come to bear in Knights of the Eternal Throne.

]]>6272Fantasy Schmantasy!http://thebrewhall.com/2016/09/06/fantasy-schmantasy/
http://thebrewhall.com/2016/09/06/fantasy-schmantasy/#commentsTue, 06 Sep 2016 11:00:17 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6255When it came to redesigning the classes in Legion, the goal was to give each spec a unique gameplay based on fantasy and lore. Here is how Blizzard described the Marksmanship Hunter.

“A sniper in hiding, the marksman unleashes arrows and bullets with deadly precision, exposing the weakness in whoever—or whatever—passes through their crosshairs.”

If that’s the case, then why is it whenever I go out into the world or enter a dungeon, I feel less like a Windrunner, and more like Tony Montana from Scarface? I feel like I should start every pull by yelling

SAY HELLO TO MY LIL’ FRIEND!!!

Show me a Marksmanship hunter that doesn’t have a bead of sweat dripping from their brow whenever they walk into a dungeon, and I’ll show you a Hunter that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about who lives and who dies.

All of the “Marksman’s” abilities are centered around indiscriminately shooting everything in our sights and doing so with extreme prejudice and reckless disregard for all life. Instead of a beautiful bow, our artifact should be a giant hand cannon.

Sidewinders – [insert rapid fire gun noises].

Marked Shot – [insert more rapid fire gun noises].

Barrage – [insert that scene from Aliens where the marines panic and totally lose their sh**t].

I single-handedly wiped our group in Eye of Azshara because I pulled a flock of seagulls while fighting Serpentix. Yes, that’s right, Seagulls!

We’re like the Oprah Winfrey of Hunters. You get a mark, you get a mark, you get a mark. Everyone in the freakin’ dungeon gets a mark! And all in one pull.

I watched Lady Sylvanas do a backflip and then take aim, and deliver a near fatal blow to Genn Greymane while upside down and in the air. The only reason it wasn’t fatal is because she probably has a soft spot for dogs. Were he a feral druid I bet she would’ve landed two arrows right in his heart. Seriously, when do I get that ability?

Well at least they got one thing right, the marksman does indeed unleash arrows. Lots, and lots of arrows.

]]>http://thebrewhall.com/2016/09/06/fantasy-schmantasy/feed/46255Alliance Launches Surprise Attack on Arcann!http://thebrewhall.com/2016/08/08/alliance-launches-surprise-attack-on-arcann/
http://thebrewhall.com/2016/08/08/alliance-launches-surprise-attack-on-arcann/#commentsMon, 08 Aug 2016 21:41:54 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6246Knights of the Fallen Empire has been full of twists and turns, and now the latest arc in the story is in full motion. Due to a patching glitch, BioWare has launched a surprise attack on Arcann’s forces and decided to release Chapter XVI: The Battle of Odessen early.

Earlier today, I opened up the launcher and the game began patching. When I logged into the game I got a message stating my game was out of synch. Clicking the message closes the client. After doing a little digging I found out that you could ignore the message and click play on any of your characters. When I did this I noticed elements of Game Update 4.7 were live; most notably the Pack Viewer and Guss Tuno recruitment mission. I logged out and immediately alerted an authority figure.

The servers are down for maintenance as I write this, but if all goes well, they’ll be up early this evening. I’m on the East Coast so I’m hopeful they’ll be available by 9:00 PM.

When they do come up, Game Update 4.7 will be live and we’ll get to see the final chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire.

Will we defeat Arcann and Vailyn? What will become of the Eternal Throne? Will Valkorian’s true plans be revealed? Who lives? Who dies? We’ll find out soon enough.

]]>http://thebrewhall.com/2016/08/08/alliance-launches-surprise-attack-on-arcann/feed/26246My New SWTOR Podcast Venture!http://thebrewhall.com/2016/08/07/my-new-swtor-podcast-venture/
Sun, 07 Aug 2016 21:35:48 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6235After playing and blogging about Star Wars: The Old Republic for the last five years, I finally decided to make a Star Wars: The Old Republic podcast. Introducing my latest venture, the State Of The Old Republic Podcast, aka – SOTOR.

The content of the show is news and information about SWTOR. I’ll do a segment about something I’m doing in-game, and there will also be a topic of the week.

Moving forward, the plan is to publish a new episode once a week on Tuesday. Episode two will be released on August 16th. I’m the only host, so my goal is to keep the show length at 30 minutes or less.

For additional information on SOTOR, you can check out this F.A.Q. as well as this introductory post on the show’s website. I’ve also embedded Episode One in this post, but if you check out the F.A.Q. you’ll see a list of all the places you can find the podcast.

I hope you enjoy my new podcast, and as the title of Episode One says, here goes nothing.

]]>6235Knights of the Eternal Throne Announcedhttp://thebrewhall.com/2016/07/16/knights-of-the-eternal-throne-announced/
Sat, 16 Jul 2016 20:45:34 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6149Today, at Star Wars Celebration Europe (SWCE), BioWare announced the next expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Knights of the Eternal Throne (KotET). Really it was more of a teaser than an announcement. Other than the title and release timeframe of Fall 2016, no other details were revealed.

I attended Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, and SWTOR wasn’t part of anything official with the event. This time, BioWare gets a seat at the table and they use the opportunity to give us what amounts to a tweet.

I’m not sure why they didn’t reveal any additional information. It’s like in Return of the Jedi when the Star Destroyers didn’t engage the Rebel fleet when they attacked the Death Star. I guess BioWare has something special planned for us, but what could possibly be more special than revealing the gameplay changes during SWCE when the entire Star Wars fan base has its eyes turned to London?

Knights of the Fall Empire was all about getting people to subscribe to the game. I imagine they will continue that model in KotET, so why not sell the game to the group of people who are most likely to take an interest? You know, Star Wars fans?

I get that the final chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire hasn’t been released yet, and they don’t want to talk about the next story until this one is wrapped up. A new story is usually just one part of an expansion. Surely they could have revealed plans for a new level cap, Flashpoint or Operation? Assuming they’re planning to have these things in KotET.

All of the details will be revealed in due time, of course, it just seems like SWCE was an opportunity to do more than just say there is another expansion coming, which everyone pretty much knew already.

Lack of solid information aside, I am a wee bit excited to see how KotFE plays out and where we go from here.

]]>6149Dark v. Light – The Journey Thus Farhttp://thebrewhall.com/2016/07/13/dark-v-light-the-journey-thus-far/
Wed, 13 Jul 2016 16:05:16 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6126There’s been an awakening, have you felt it? The dark side and the light. The Dark vs. Light event has entered it’s third week, and I’m still plugging away, and much to my surprise, I’m having fun with it.

I really wanted to hate this event. I truly did. When BioWare announced that that the achievements were for new characters only, I wanted to blast them like Anakin Skywalker when he was told that he would not be granted the rank of Master after getting a seat on the Jedi Council.

“What? How can you do this? This is outrageous, It’s unfair.”

I can’t though. The truth is I’m participating in the event, I’m getting cool items out of the packs, the leveling gear is crazy good, and I’m having fun with it.

I totally understand why veterans of this game, which I am one by the way, want to loath this event. The game is almost five years old now. It’s like you’ve won the Tour de France for five years straight, only unlike Lance Armstrong, you didn’t cheat, but the governing body decided to strip your titles anyway. It’s a lot of work for which you aren’t receiving any credit. Then there’s the character slot issue and the fact that you probably have to shell out really money, credits or coins. Some of you probably had to delete a character or two. I may not hate the event, but the character slot issue is an area of complaint that I can get on board with.

The reality is, If you’re looking for a reason to hate The Dark v. Light event you won’t have any trouble finding it. The road to Legendary level alone is practically an insurmountable climb and one that has players decrying that it is nothing but a giant grind. If you treat Dark v. Light as a giant to do list you’re going to end up despising the event. The truth is, the event is nothing more than extra rewards for playing the game. My advice is have a plan, but plan to have to some fun.

I’ve created two characters a light-side Mercenary and a dark-side Jedi. I’ve loaded both characters up with outfits, mounts, legacy perks and more. This is my merc. Her outfit comes courtesy of Njessi from Hawtpants of the Old Republic. No she, didn’t give me any gear, she just came up with this outfit on TOR Fashion. It’s the belt that really sold me on the outfit.

I used my merc to get to Valiant level. This got me five pieces of the Victorious Pioneer Armor Set. This is the leveling gear that grants and increase to XP gained. It has three, five and seven piece set bonuses. With five pieces I get a 40% XP increase, and it stacks with all of the other XP boosts in the game. It’s amazing gear, especially at low levels. Since my merc is now level 65, I’m using it to level my Pub toon.

For my Republic character, I created a Jedi Knight named Count Sudooku. The leveling gear makes the progress super quick. He’s level 26 and just starting on Taris. I’m only doing the class story quests at this point. I’m going dark side with him, but I’m starting to rethink that idea. I like the light side companion, so by going dark, I’m shooting myself in the foot.

“Gentleman, your swords please!”

As far as the packs go, it’s been better than I thought it would be. I’ve earned 25 packs so far. On the upper end I’ve gotten a white/white dye, the Temple Guardian Upper Body crate, the Revan Reborn Upper Body crate, and the Revan Reborn Supplementary crate. I should have no problem getting to Eternal level which means I will earn 30 more packs before all is said and done. I’m really hoping to fill out that Revan set. I have more thoughts on the packs, which I’ll share another time.

Overall I’m having a good time with the Dark v. Light event. I shouldn’t, but I am.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to continue unleashing Count Sudooku on the galaxy.

]]>6126The Choicehttp://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/24/the-choice/
http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/24/the-choice/#commentsFri, 24 Jun 2016 17:26:56 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6117When Legion starts on August 30th, Hunters will need to make an important choice early on in the expansion; almost immediately really. One of the first things you need to decide is which spec you want to play, and which artifact weapon you want to go after first.

This a departure from how other expansions worked. Previously you chose the spec you wanted to play and just played it. And by choose, I mean the majority of us looked at which spec was doing the most damage and just played that.

In Legion, all three Hunter specs are undergoing major changes, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Focus was introduced in Cataclysm. On top of that, each spec will have its own artifact weapon that you will need to maintain and upgrade throughout the expansion.

The good news is that you will be able to obtain all your artifact weapons before you hit level 110. Once you reach level 102 you can grab a quest to get your next artifact. This gives plenty of time to make a final decision on which spec you really want to play before raiding kicks in.

The challenge is going to be maintaining multiple artifact weapons. It won’t be impossible, but it will take some doing. I think most players will want to have more than one weapon at peak performance and we will likely see loot rules go into effect surrounding relic drops.

I plan to start as Beast Mastery, and I hope and pray that the DPS between it and Marksmanship are fairly equal. In the past, I’ve raided with whatever spec was highest on DPS. I’m not opposed to that now, but I’m not too keen on grinding out weapon upgrades just to have options.

My preference right now is to focus on Beast Mastery and get that artifact as powerful as can be, and worry about Marksmanship, and to some degree Survival, later on.

If past expansions are any indication, then one spec seldom dominates a whole expansion, and I fear that past circumstances will mandate that Hunters maintain at least two artifact weapons. Survival feels like a fringe spec, such that even if it does perform well, it seems unreasonable to expect a Hunter to play it if they do not like melee.

Spec tuning is underway, and I wait with baited breath to see how the numbers turn out. Regardless of how close they come, I fear we may be doing the artifact grind in Legion.

]]>http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/24/the-choice/feed/26117My Dark Side vs. My Light Sidehttp://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/24/my-dark-side-vs-my-light-side/
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 15:38:16 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6101Yesterday, BioWare announced their upcoming Dark vs. Light “event”. I put event in quotes because it’s not really an event per se. At least not in the same vein as the Gree or Rakghoul events. You know, things that when they were introduced to the game were new content.

I’m not going to go into exact detail about what the event covers, mainly because it’s rather involved. Seriously, it reads like one of those long TOS agreements that you “peruse”. And by peruse, I mean don’t read a single word, but just blindly click the box and then wonder why your inbox is suddenly filling up with all sorts of unsolicited e-mails.

No, I really don’t want to buy a Fist-O-Matic 3000. In fact, why don’t you take your Fist-O-Matic and shove it up… Oh, never mind.

To BioWare’s credit, they were not light on information and even included guides to help you get started. Here are some official links to all the information you need to know about Dark vs. Light.

In short, the event can best be summarized as think of anything and everything you could possibly do in-game, and now imagine doing all of those things in a 3-5 month period on brand new characters. That’s characters plural by the way. It would have been easier for BioWare to list the activities that aren’t part of the event, which I believe is only that PvE mini-space game. Remember that thing? Didn’t think so.

I’m very conflicted about this event and am wrestling with my dark and light sides.

My dark side is all like,

and my light side is all like this.

My dark side is going, let me get this straight. You want me to do all of the things it took 4 and ½ years to complete and do them all again in 3-5 months on multiple new toons? Umm, Hell no! This is utter bantha poodoo! I’m done. That bike I was thinking about getting? It’s totally happening now and I’m going to step away from the keyboard and spend the Summer outside.

My dark side is thinking who is the genius that thought that having players reboot themselves is a good idea? That’s what this is. If I want to get the full experience of the event I have to create and level at a minimum eight characters. I have to run them through Flashpoints, stories, Operations, and Battlegrounds. I have to get all the crafting crew skills to max level. I have to hunt new datacrons and participate in recurring events. I even have to do Galactic ‘Effin Starfighter.

All of this so I can get an armor set that, wait for it, helps you level more ‘Effin toons. Not even joking.

My light side, on the other hand, is going, let me get this straight. You want me to do all of the things it took 4 and ½ years to complete and do them all again in 3-5 months on multiple new toons?

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Mounts, armor sets, companions, decorations? I love this stuff. I am all about the cosmetic rewards. I bust a big grin every time I break out my Sith Juggernaut with his Sith Recluse armor set and Defiant Vented Lightsaber; even if it’s just to farm crystals and herbs.

My light side is making plans to get this done. I’m thinking about which new characters I want to level. Mercenary for the Empire and Smuggler for the Republic are my initial thoughts. If I decide to shoot for the Endor moon, I’ll need one of each class, of course.

In short, my light side is all in. I’m ready to stock up on Mountain Dew and Doritos, lock the door and go to town.

I get why people are bent out of shape, especially the long-time players. They’ve already done this stuff on multiple characters. It’s their legacy and they’re about to have nothing to show for it.

I myself just finished leveling two new toons from 1-65 in April and May. I have a level 25 Smuggler and level 39 Consular that won’t count towards this event. I have 20 characters on my main server and no free slots. I’ve done most of the Operations, World Bosses, and Flashpoints. I’ve done all of the class stories and other storylines multiple times. I have every crew skill at max level.

The timing of the event is terrible. At worst it should have happened in November or December while we were waiting on Chapter X, and at best it should have happened when the Legacy system was released in 2012.

I will participate in the event, and I actually look forward to getting more stuff. I don’t plan to achieve the Legendary level, but Eternal, which unlocks the new companions is quite doable, and that will be my goal. Like most thing with this nearly five year old MMO, I’m not as excited as I wish to be, but I keep on keeping on.

]]>6101Gimme a “B”, Gimme an “E”, Gimme a “T”…http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/21/gimme-a-b-gimme-an-e-gimme-a-t/
http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/21/gimme-a-b-gimme-an-e-gimme-a-t/#commentsTue, 21 Jun 2016 13:00:16 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6093I’m In! I needed a little help, but I finally made into the Legion Beta. I was tinkering around on the PTR, but that felt kind of half-assed, and I’m definitely a full-ass kind of guy. I’m just getting started, but I will now able to share some first-hand thoughts about Legion on the podcast this Sunday.

I can’t wait to take the new specs out for a test drive. I’ve already given Beast Mastery a look, and unless Marksmanship can just conjure up incredible amounts of DPS out of the Nether, Beast Mastery will likely be my go-to spec in Legion. If Survival is the top dog, then I’m going Demon Hunter.

Oh, and this gun model that I gushed over a while back, but was sad it was Horde only? There’s a variant of it in Legion that you can buy for 36 gold. And yes, Alliance can wield it.

]]>http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/21/gimme-a-b-gimme-an-e-gimme-a-t/feed/26093I’ll Show You The Dark Side!http://thebrewhall.com/2016/06/07/ill-show-you-the-dark-side/
Tue, 07 Jun 2016 16:59:32 +0000http://thebrewhall.com/?p=6074I caved. There’s no other way to put it. The lure of the “fluff” was too compelling and without hesitation I dropped 45 million on a Defiant Vented Lightsaber. My Kylo Ren wannabe is now complete, and I have no regrets.

I’ve said this before, but the whole point of earning mass quantities of credits is to buy things that make the game more fun, and for me this definitely made the game more fun. I broke out one of my new Juggernauts and went to town hacking and slashing everything in my path. By the way, I only discovered the Juggernaut Advanced Class a couple of months ago, and my god, it is utterly funtastic!

I tried Marauder and Sentinel before. I love the dual-wielding lightsabers, but never could get comfortable with any of the rotations. I really wanted to find a melee class I could love and gave Juggernaut a try. I now have two Juggs and two Guardians. All are 65 and only one was an instant 60. I’m not ready to declare it my favorite Advanced Class, but it’s in the top three for sure.

I also dropped a few million on Commander Vizla’s armor set and a few other odds and ends. All told, I went from having 121 million credits to 74 million. I’m not broke, but the Hutt Cartel isn’t exactly giving me the VIP treatment when I visit their casinos. I now need to focus on filling up the coffers before the next Alliance pack arrives. I don’t think I’ll get all the way back by then, but having 100 million would be nice; that’s my goal.

I leave with a little video of the lightsaber in action, alongside the Sith Recluse armor set.